Summer 2012 Knight First Amendment Fellowship
We have a grant to support a limited number of students to work on First Amendment problems over the summer. This is kind of the proverbial “chicken or the egg” question: we need to find out whether students are interested before we try to firm up placements; yet we realize prospective applicants need to have some idea of the placements before they can decide whether they are interested or not.
This is what we know. Last year we made contacts with the general counsel’s offices of both the New York Times and the Washington Post. We also have contacts with The Philadelphia Inquirer. If we can secure placements at one or more of these newspapers, we would like to offer summer research fellowships in the sum of $10,000.00 for students to work the whole summer (the exact dates to be determined, but not to conflict with spring or fall classes). In addition, Assistant Dean Thorpe will try to assist in finding reasonably priced housing on the campuses of local universities if the applicant so desires. There is also a possibility that we could provide a very small stipend to be used towards housing or living expenses.
If we have no students interested in these placements or we are unable to make the placements, then other options are possible. For example, in the past we have placed a student in the Ohio Attorney General’s office in Columbus who worked on cases involving religious challenges made to various policies of the Department of Corrections. We also placed a student with the Cleveland ACLU who worked on public records act requests and procedures. We believe that we can go back to these placements or similar placements if a proper placement cannot be made with one or more of the newspapers. Because the cost of living is lower in the Akron area than along the east coast, we would probably try to do more placements locally at a lower stipend.
At this point we are trying to solicit information about interest. If you think you would have an interest in one of these positions either on the east coast or locally, please submit the application form and a copy of your resume to Mrs. Lombardi (robin4@uakron.edu) in the Constitutional Law Center. It would be helpful if we could receive this information no later than Friday, March 9, 2012. Of course, sooner is always better than later.